


Don't Fear the Reaper

by imaginationtherapy



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related: Icarus, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic Description of Everything, Heavy Angst, It's about as sad as you expect, Major character death - Freeform, Sort Of, Thursday POV, Unrelated to anything else that i have written, for real tho, so you know, what is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 01:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginationtherapy/pseuds/imaginationtherapy
Summary: The body at his feet wears the face of a poet. Its a face Thursday never wanted to see in death's shadow.(completely unrelated to the Shameless series)





	Don't Fear the Reaper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guardianoffun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/gifts).

> I don't even have an explanation for where this came from...I have no idea why this idea popped into my head or why I felt the need to write it but...hey, I wrote something not-Jarse for once!
> 
> Dedicated to guardianoffun whose perpetual ability to write little "whiskey shots" of emotions always amazes me.

The air is thick with the smoky sting of gunpowder and the coppery tang of blood. Death hangs heavy in the air. Each man moves slowly, almost reverently, through the scattered bodies. Not one is left alive. Bullets pepper walls and men alike, silvery lead not distinguishing between life and lifelessness. 

Thursday moves as if through treacle, following his men and scanning the bodies. He had hoped to avoid this useless death and destruction, but it seems it was bound to happen. At least their own side remained free of casualties.

Or so he thought.

Thursday spies a set of shoes poking out from behind the pool table. He feels the ground lurch beneath his feet as his eyes travel up the body.

Like powder keg set too close to the fire, the inevitable explosion had wreaked destruction far beyond the circle of gang members.

“What’s he doing here?” Thursday hears Strange’s voice but he pays no heed. He is frozen to the spot, unable to even breathe as he stares at the lifeless figure on the floor.

Crimson blood dribbles down his chin, a dark stain on skin turned white as snow in death. Dust, blood, and gun smoke mingle in his hair, dulling the reddish shade to scuffed-leather brown. His eyes are open, but the sharp intelligence has drained from their blue depths. The emptiness that remains will haunt Thursday’s dreams for years to come. 

Brighter crimson leaks from three separate holes in his body. It stains long fingers that lay across his stomach, vain in their attempt to stop the flow. Thursday’s detective skills do him no favors as he pieces together the puzzle left for him. The largest stain, the one directly beneath fingers that should never be so still, it was the first. That bullet would have burned, leaving pain and fear behind as the victim fell to his knees. The second shot went wide, striking the man near his collarbone. The final shot, the smallest of the stains, finally ended his misery as it buried itself into his heart.

Thursday falls to his knees, barely registering as his weapon clatters to the floor beside him. What good did it do him? He brought it here to protect his men. He didn’t know one of his own had already died.

His trembling hands fly to the lad’s neck, searching frantically for the signs of life that he knows are long gone. He calls his name, over and over. He begs him to come back. He shakes the lad roughly, hoping it might cause that cursed arrogance to spark once again. He insults him, calls him stupid, calls him selfish, calls him any name he can think of.

_ Wake up! Come back you bloody idiot! Don’t make me bury another bagman.  _

He can hear Strange behind him, telling him it’s no use. But it can’t be. It can’t be too late. He won’t let it be too late.

He has only one recourse left. The boy’s name. It’s the one thing that always brought him back from a stupor. It has to work now.

So he uses it. He calls his name, curses as he says it. He screams it, again and again and again. He says it until he’s hoarse from screaming.

_ Damn you, Endeavour. Wake up! _

Morse doesn’t move. He doesn’t respond.

And Thursday knows it’s over. He has lost. He’s lost this war, he’s lost a soldier--hell, he’s lost the one soldier he couldn’t stand to lose.

Thursday sags to the floor. He leans back against the pool table, lets the men move around him. One hand lays draped across his bagman’s shoulder. He feels the tears come and he squeezes his eyes shut. He won’t let them fall, not here. Even here, even now, he keeps his sorrow inside. Even as he holds tight to the man he’d come to consider his second son. Grief is a luxury for those who have no one to command.

Thursday opens his eyes and heaves himself to his feet. He glances once more at the man who will never disobey orders again.

And then he walks away.

He keeps walking, through the following days. He lives through them in a blur. He sees the one sight he hoped never to see: red hair and pale freckled skin laid out on cold, unforgiving steel. DeBryn hovers over the lad, his hand gently smoothing the sheet back over the bloody wounds.

He hears the words the preacher says as they lower Morse into the ground. He hears himself murmur something comforting to Joyce. He watches as the bury Morse’s sharp wit beneath several meters of dirt.

He finds himself alone, the others vanished like a mist burning at dawn. He reads the tombstone through tears that he can finally allow to fall.

_ Endeavour Morse _

_ Who died as he lived: alone and unloved _

It breaks him, those words. He knows the truth of them, the times he left the lad to the bottle and his opera. The times his own gruff mannerisms forced the lad farther away. He falls to his knees, sinking his fingers into the dirt. He claws at it, trying to reach Morse. Trying to let the lad know he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t unloved. He had family, he had someone who cared…

Thursday wakes with a gasp. His hands are twisted in the sheets and his face is wet with tears. 

Reality rolls over him; he can feel the horror of his dream shatter into thousands of glittering pieces. He’s no longer trapped in the glass prison of his dream--rather, he’s subjected to the sting of reality. The shards tumble through his veins, pricking him and reminding him of what he did lose.

Relief chases the sensation, soothing away the pain. The lad he buries tomorrow is not  _ his _ lad, not his son, not his bagman. Guilt lingers somewhere in the dark corners of his mind, but he ignores it. 

He still has time. He can change the writing on that tombstone, if he tries. 

He has to, or he’ll forever live in fear of his nightmare bleeding into reality once again.

Just like it did with Mickey Carter.

**Author's Note:**

> So that happened. *shrug* Sorry, I think?
> 
> Its up to you to decide whether or not the "lad" they bury is, in fact, the one that died in canon. In my head, its someone else.
> 
> Okay, well, I'm going to go work on all of my other WIPs now instead of making people cry again...*wanders away muttering*


End file.
